Party-group disentanglement in the Italian case: an introduction

The analysis looks at the disentanglement of interest groups from parties and the autonomous role of the former in policy making. As in other European countries, since the 1980s, in Italy an accelerating decline of parties has been observed, along with a growing empowerment of interest groups. Furthermore, in the first part of the 1990s, the Italian party system collapsed giving rise to a ‘political transition’ which represented a window of opportunity for substantial turn-over in the political elite, a majoritarian electoral reform, devolution, privatization, and policy reforms in a range of important sectors.